Sorry, it's a bit late... But here it is, my first Yullen week prompt!

Yearn

It is quite simple, this feeling. It's been there since the beginning. It's only a matter of time.

That's what Allen tells himself.

It's only a matter of time until it goes away, this yearning. It must be. There's no way it could be engrained in him that deep.

But of course it is. Why else would there be headaches and heartaches and terrible, terrible spasms when he tries to grasp what it is he's yearning for?

Then again, Allen is only human. He can't take this constant shuddering pain. What can he do?

He soldiers on through life, ignoring this burning, all-consuming need for –

For –

And that's where the problem lies. This is why he ignores it.

It's just as simple as the yearning itself.

Allen doesn't know what's making him feel this way. And that's what makes it so difficult.

It would be so much easier if it was Lenalee he was yearning for. Rhode. Miranda. Tyki. Komui. Even Cross, for God's sake. He doesn't care. He's not picky.

But it isn't. It's someone – something – else. Someone he can't remember, no matter how hard he tries; it's all jumbled up in his mind, a huge mess of memory, the mocking wind in the city dreamscape (that seems just so familiar) that snatches away the face just as he's finally caught up with it. All that's left are flashes; flashes of swords, flashes of blood; flashes of flames, flashes of tears. Flashes of dark hair and dark eyes which make him go weak at the knees. The way he feels, when the flashes fall from the sky like silver rain–

It scares him. It's so deep; it wrenches within him, a long-forgotten phantom reaching out with cold white hands, freeing itself from the chains within his soul.

Lavi teases him, as he is wont to do. Allen does not grudge him for that. He knows he sounds stupid when he says it, too. Who loves the shards of a memory? Who loves a broken figment of their imagination? (He does.)

He can't even name the person – no, man. (It's most definitely a man. No woman towers over him like that, no woman glowers at him like that, no woman awakens the first stirrings of lust within him like that.) It's something Japanese, he knows it; something the man hated to be called. It's a letter, L or O or T or U or something. Something quiet, something gentle. Something the man wasn't.

He remembers scowls and smirks that tug at his heartstrings. No, tug is too gentle; the dark-eyed man wrenches his heart right out of his chest (and that feeling's familiar, too, and it hurts like nothing else does; it's almost as if someone has already taken his heart out, and it's straining to get back in.)

And then sometimes, suddenly, there's anger too. Anger over petty things, like when Jerry always, always, unwittingly serves up that strange Japanese dish; like when Lavi calls him beansprout; like when he catches sight of the strangest things – swords and lotuses and Hindu symbols.

He likes the anger. No one looks twice at him when he quietly empties the bowl of – is it soda? Soba? – or when he hits Lavi (with his left hand, always with his left hand) or when he scowls at the lotus hourglass Alma wears or the sword hanging on Tiedoll's wall.

Everyone understands the anger.

No one understands the yearning.

It is quite simple, this feeling. It's been there since the beginning. It's only a matter of time.

That's what Kanda tells himself.

It's only a matter of time until it goes away, this yearning. It must be. He can't wait any longer.

It's been over a century, now. Allen must open his eyes soon. How can he walk everyday down the mundane street as he lives out his mundane life? How can he laugh with his mundane friends as he greets them in his mundane world?

Doesn't he feel it? This yearning that leads from Heaven to Earth? This red string that memories dance upon?

It can't be just him. He couldn't take it if it was only him. Only him that remembered soda and swords and petty little arguments that just didn't matter.

He's so angry sometimes. Stupid beansprout, forgetting the Black Order, forgetting the fight, forgetting him. Was it really so easy for the Earl to transport the whole battlefield into the future? Why didn't Allen fight it like he always fought him?

But Allen will have to fight soon. The past is reasserting itself. The Millenium Earl is only so strong.

And then, Kanda thinks, this yearning will finally stop.